I took a LOT of pictures on this part of our trip. I have some sort of craving or addiction: I have to capture the moment, place, or memory. Most of the time in my attempt to preserve I ruin the moment but my husband and all of the strangers I enlisted to take photo's of us were very cooperative. We made the 4 1/2 hour drive down to Banff Alberta on Wednesday. I have to break this post into two parts just because there is so much! Fear not there are many more pictures of Banff in all it's glory!
My brother Christopher had wanted to visit his friend in Calgary so we dropped him off on the way. Chris hates photo's unless of course he's holding a large gun or something equally cool. The only decent picture I could get of him was of him asleep. Oh how uncomfortable he looks.
One cannot visit Calgary without stopping by Peter's. It is a novelty. They have 30 milkshake flavors of which you can mix up to 3 of them together resulting in more than 4500 combination's. Oh the pressure!
(Pay no mind to the car about to run us over.)
Peter's benches are all marked up with couples initials so I added mine and Jakob's to the group. For those that are appalled... I view it as a right of passage and I promise I will never defile public property again!
This was our adorable hotel! It had a cozy feel to it and was right next to the shops downtown. Excellent location!
So I have a confession I love moose's
(what is the proper terminology?) and turtles but in Canada a moose is more common than a turtle. One day I will make a moose rocking horse... one day.
I also love to crochet. I made myself a sock monkey toque recently, absolutely fantastic.
(I will post pictures and a pattern). I'm not sure if you can see it this size but this is a full wall of toques, with matching mittens and boots.
After reading my initial confession I'm sure you can guess which hat was my favorite. I had Jakob model it so I could duplicate it when I returned home. Oh, I have to have the mitts too! Fantastic.
It doesn't get much better than relaxing in a piping hot hot tub after a long day of traveling. I will post Day 2 of our Honeymoon/ Anniversary soon, I'm off to go rock climbing now.
To be continued...
Welcome to Lake Louise. This lake is located approximately 32 miles from Banff. There are hikes to go on and canoes to rent so one can go exploring. It was well worth the drive to see how beautiful it is.
This was taken right at the mouth of the river. Don't let the pictures fool you there were people EVERYWHERE!
The water was sky blue and it was freezing cold. Jakob wanted to jump in but reconsidered once his fingers pierced the frigged water.
It is a very surreal experience being in a place so beautiful. For me at least it made me thank my Heavenly Father. How could one not be thankful in a place so stunning. I don't understand how people can see places like this and still not believe in something more. Not necessarily a LDS view but just a feeling that there is something bigger than they are. Something beautiful, something perfect.
I have never seen bridges with trees on them before. They are actually there to allow animals to cross. They're quite pretty as well.
The ice explorer. We are at the base of the gondola. It cost $30 a person to go up to the top which is ridiculous, seeing as how we would only take a picture and come back down. We also skipped out on the hot springs. It was a massive hot tub. That is all and we didn't feel like rubbing up against several "large" women for the tune of $8 a pop. So we continued on our adventure feeling satisfied about our choice to tour on. :)
This is in a huge field of Daisey's next to the "Hot Springs". It was beautiful.
Bow Falls. They were stunning... not as big as was expected but nevertheless... stunning. We skipped out on hiking at Lake Louise thinking that there was a hike to these falls. Much to our surprise one just drove up next to them. So we went adventuring.
Jakob decided that he wanted to cross the shallow but narrow river. The water was clear as crystal so we rolled up or pants and began our journey across, of course there was a foot bridge only 50 feet away but who needs one of those when your a man? Needless to say we got soaked. On the other side there was no one but us and a course full of golfers but we stayed out of their way. It was nice to have some place to ourselves without all of the people around us.
This is the southern most tip of the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel this thing is MASSIVE. I stole this picture from online just so you could see how big it is. Jakob and I called it Banff Castle. It has a shopping plaza attached to it. Rooms start at $489/ night.
We had so much fun on our trip and couldn't have asked for better weather. I would love to go back in the winter for Christmas. We could go snowboarding and ice skating on Lake Louise. I have never seen it in the winter I'm sure it would be stunning. It was perfect for our anniversary! I cannot wait to return!
